-
Blu Ray and the Mac…
-
[Chris Babbitt] “I’ve installed internal hard drives in my MacPro. Would you say that this is just as easy. I seem to recall there being some issues with the cables.???”
Nothing is as easy as installing hard drives in the Mac Pro. It’s been 18 months since I installed the last one here, but I seem to remember it taking all of about 5 minutes. I would definitely remember if it was an issue.
No clue why he doesn’t like them, but in my experience it’s no big deal. I much prefer having the internal burner as it just runs fine. I’ve had other external DVD burners in the past and they didn’t always work reliably. I’m sure they’re better now, but I don’t need that.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
-
[Chris Babbitt] “The person who told me this was Bruce Nazarian who wrote the article, “Taming the Wild Blu Yonder,” which can be found on Ken Stone’s site.”
Thanks, I just read it. He says some drives may not fit in the Mac Pro optical bay. That is false. It is a standard size and they all fit.
Sean
-
It’s not in the article. He told me that in person.
-
People, people, people…!
Don’t you know that BluRay is a bag of hurt? Come on……….
😀
-
[Jeremy Garchow] “People, people, people…!
Don’t you know that BluRay is a bag of hurt? Come on……….
“It’s easy when you use the right tools and avoid the wrong ones. 🙂
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
-
I’ve just researched several articles on this, and what a bunch of conflicting advice! One article says that the MacPro optical bays are IDE, not SATA, and you have to buy a special SATA adaptor to plug into the back of your drive. Another article says that the SATA cables are right there, ready to plug into your drive. Still yet another article says that you have to buy a SATA cable and pull a bunch of stuff out of the machine in order to access the SATA ports on the mother board. Now that sounds like a major pain in the fanny. I don’t know which of these methods is correct. Hopefully, you won’t mind setting me straight on this. I’d much rather have an internal than an external drive.
-
[Chris Babbitt] ” Now that sounds like a major pain in the fanny. I don’t know which of these methods is correct. Hopefully, you won’t mind setting me straight on this. I’d much rather have an internal than an external drive.”
You do what I did. I called FastMac. I told them I had a Mac Pro Quad 3.0. They told me what I needed to know to purchase and install the unit.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
-
All 3 articles are correct.
[Chris Babbitt] “One article says that the MacPro optical bays are IDE, not SATA”
There is an IDE plug back there if you want to use an IDE Blu-ray drive.
[Chris Babbitt] “and you have to buy a special SATA adaptor to plug into the back of your drive”
You can do that if you want. Some vendors include it. Still a lot cheaper than buying external.
[Chris Babbitt] “Still yet another article says that you have to buy a SATA cable and pull a bunch of stuff out of the machine in order to access the SATA ports on the mother board.”
The cable should come with it (if not it costs less than $5). Remember with external you have to buy a firewire cable which costs more.
If you have small hands (I don’t) you don’t even need to pull anything out. I wouldn’t recommend my grandmother do it, but we’re all intelligent professionals here, right?
There is one drawback. SATA ports 5 & 6 don’t show up in Boot Camp, so you can’t use it in Windows (if that matters to anyone – it might if you want to actually view retail Blu-ray movies).
Regardless, it’s just silly to me to go external when you’ve got that empty optical bay meant for this. It’s also worse for the environment and your power bill.
Sean
-
Well, thank you Sean. That clears up a lot of questions. One more, if you don’t mind…
Will any drive work. The 8x Panasonic looks goo, and I guess the Pioneer is working for you. Does the Fastmac have some kind of magic that justifies a $580 price tag for a 4x drive? -
[Chris Babbitt] “Will any drive work.”
Yes.
[Chris Babbitt] “Does the Fastmac have some kind of magic that justifies a $580 price tag for a 4x drive?”
No, but it probably comes with a $10 IDE/SATA adapter.
Fastmac makes slim Blu-ray drives that are specially made to fit in Macbook Pros. For desktop it’s just a generic drive like any other. What they’re doing is practically a con job. I can understand a 10-20% markup for the “We promise this works on Macs” niche. But they’re charging more than double. Ridiculous.
Sean
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up